Monday, October 2, 2017

We had a heatwave at the Stoweflake Resort and Spa for the Ninth Annual Vermont Pumpkin Chuckin Festival with 11 teams competing in the chuck, 1 throw for show, 5 teams in the Chili Cook-Off, 43 volunteers and over 1300 spectators enjoying the chuckin', chili, beer, wine, food, raffles, two bands, face-painting, balloon animals, games and volleyball. Over $5,000 was raised for the Lamoille Restorative Center (Hyde Park) whose staff and volunteers did an amazing job running the festival. LRC is doing great work and it was a pleasure to work with them.Moosilauke Hurlers sweep the event!

The Chamberlain brothers from New Hampshire have been coming to the festival for six years, arriving early with their trailer of two trebuchets in the middleweight open division. This year Ray Chamberlain won the Middleweight Open division *and* overall Best Design by throwing 326 feet. His brother Ed was slightly behind at 276 feet and way ahead of the rest of the field.

I often get asked why the scaling, height and weight limitations and penalties are so complicated. The answer is, they need to be that complicated to make it fair for all competitors. If a trebuchet design is made twice as tall, it will throw twice as far. This allows us to directly compare the design of a lightweight, middleweight and heavyweight by scaling up the smaller trebuchets so they compete on equal footing with the heavyweights. By comparing their relative heights, the magic number is roughly 2.9 for the lightweight and 1.7 for the middleweights. This is how we select the Best Design Grand Prize. The four winners of each division are scaled up to Heavyweight size. The Lightweight winner is scaled up by 2.9, both Middlweight winners are scaled up by 1.71 and the Heavyweight winner is not scaled. The best “scaled” distance wins the Grand Prize. In nine years, it has gone to the Heavyweights 3 times and to the Middlweight Open 6 times.

A trebuchet must be powered only by gravity, so by limiting the height and weight, we ensure each competitor starts with the same amount of energy. If they choose to make their frame very light, they can use more weight in the counterweight, at the risk of breaking something. It takes more energy to throw a heavier pumpkin, so the pumpkins must be at, or over, the specified weight to be legal.

If a trebuchet is over-height or over-weight, we don't kick them out of the festival; we allow them to compete with a penalty roughly proportional to how much they are out of spec. The penalty isn't really so much a penalty as a proportional offset to correct for the weight or height advantage beyond the “legal” limits.

The following summary of each division will show the adjusted distance, after scaling up including any penalty. If you want the actual distance, just divide by the appropriate scaling.Summary of all competitors (all distances adjusted and scaled up to Heavyweight)
Lightweight Division: (scaling 2.9268)

1st place: Steven Mccann, 276 feet

2nd place: Theresa Tipper, 228 feet

3rd place: Owen Christman, 218 feet

4th place: Barclay Johnson, 185 feet

5th place: Theresa Tipper, 172 feet

Middleweight Junior Division: (scaling 1.7142)

1st place: Keiser Nesbitt, 282 feet

Middleweight Open Division: (scaling 1.7142

1st place: Ray Chamberlain, 509 feet

2nd place: Ed Chamberlin, 456 feet

3rd place: John Christman, 330 feet

4th place: Nick Helms, 63 feet

Heavyweight Division: (no scaling)

1st place: Troop 271, 83 feet

Throw for show:

Dave Jordan, 185 feet

Chili Cook-Off champions:

The chili cook-off was a great success with three competitors and running out of chili before the end of the festival. Thanks for Keith Thompson running the show. In the feel-good hit of the festival, all of the winners donated their cash prize back to the Lamoille Restorative Center, in Hyde Park, Vermont. Here are the winners:

A special thanks to our main sponsor, Stoweflake Mountain Resort and Spa for letting us use their beautiful field for free, as well as all the other sponsors:

North Country Federal Credit Union

Alpine Snowguards

The Alchemist

H.A. Manosh

Community National Bank

Smugglers Notch Resort

Stowe Country Club

Stowe Beverage

Union Bank

People's United Bank

MSI

El Toro

Thompson's Flour Shop

Laraway Youth and Family Services

The UPS Store - Stowe

Donald Blake Jr, Inc.

Ideltyme

Power Play Sports

Turtle Fur

Elmore Lakeview Farmstead

Stowe Motel

Stowe Soaring

PP&D

Special thanks to Bruce Wallace and his family for being the Master of Ceremonies and helping for the last 7 years, to Nick Pizzutti and Alyssa Gagne for registration and calculating the winners, to Gunner McCain for quick, cheery distance readings, to Mike Dunn for excellent sound system and House Dunn and John Smyth for great music, to Bob Gross and Russell Baum for helping out with safety and setup for the last 9 years.

We look forward to the next festival, Sept. 30th, 2018 at the Stoweflake.